Category: doom

Cacowards 2019

It’s the Cacowards! The annual compilation of the best Doom levels and mods is here for 2019.

Link: https://www.doomworld.com/cacowards/2019/index/

The Cacowards are the best source of quality levels and gameplay mods for Doom. Anyone who wants to expand their experience of Doom engine gameplay should look there for the best mods and levels. That isn’t to say that it covers all quality content, but it’s certainly a good start.

Special mention for the 2x upscaling project – a project that uses multiple AIs in tandem to redraw the Doom sprites at double the resolution.

Sonic Robo Blast 2

This is a trailer for Sonic Robo Blast 2 ver. 2.2.

SRB2 is a mod for Doom that creates a unique 3D Sonic game in the style of the older games. Honestly, it’s probably the best Sonic has ever been in 3D. That doesn’t mean it’s perfect (3d Sonic sets a low bar). The controls have always been too slippery for my liking which makes precision platforming a pain.

It’s nice to see this mod getting some love. It’s over two decades old (originally created in 1998), and it was a technical marvel (for the Doom engine) when it came out. The new release looks like it has added a lot of impressive new effects (destructible terrain using polyobjects!) and I’m looking forward to trying this.

My 3D Printer Has Arrived

My 3D printer has arrived! It’s a Creality Ender 3. I’ve installed an aluminium extruder (replacing the default plastic extruder, which tends to wear or break) but otherwise the printer is a standard stock printer.

After assembling it and checking the build was correct, I made a center piece model for my demon army (28mm figure for scale).

This Cyberdemon is from Thingiverse and printed in 13 separate parts, using a modified SiePie miniature printing profile. It’s also made from an environmentally friendly bio-plastic.

Anonymous Ask: Fav. Mods?

[Anonymous Question] “Do you have any doom mods in particular you recommend? I’m new to even the idea of modding it and don’t know where to start ??”

Gosh, there’s so much out there now! It’s hard to know what to recommend first without dumping way too much text.

Trailblazer is a mod that turns you into a Snake Plissken-style bad ass. I always come back to it, it’s lots of fun and probably my favourite at the moment. https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=47494

High Noon Drifter is a fantastic “Weird West” mod that keeps the core gameplay intact while adding a lot of cool features. https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=57098

Demonsteele is Devil May Cry: Doom Edition. It’s a favorite and by the same author as High Noon Drifter but it’s very different to normal play. Try something else first. https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=46787

Combined Arms wasn’t originally a favourite, but the new update has really improved it and it just feels great. It’s a not a bad place to start as it’s a nice and simple armoury replacement. No extra controls or special moves, just new guns (and an optional monster replacement pack) https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=51066

Final Doomer is a great weapon replacer that gives you a new armory themed around five famous megawads (mega-wad = map pack that replaces all the levels in Doom 2) and a tweaked version of the default armory. https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=55061

If you’re totally new to the scene you should probably also look at Project Brutality or Brutal Doom. Their code is a mess (please don’t try and learn anything from them) but their high profiles got a lot of people back into Doom, including me. These mods basically turn Doom into the Doom Comic Book.https://www.moddb.com/mods/brutal-doom
https://www.moddb.com/mods/brutal-doom/addons/project-brutality

Honourable Mentions (ie, stuff I like but haven’t played lots of yet):
Guncaster – super cool mod that turns you into an OP dragon with a gun. Might feel a bit overwhelming if it’s your first mod.https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=37066
Russian Overkill – a RIDICULOUS weapon mod which I don’t play a lot of but most people adore. https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=29915
MetaDoom – every Doom game smashed into one gameplay mod! I haven’t played the latest updates. https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=53010
Colorful Hell – a monster replacer that adds harder monsters based on MMORPG rarity tiers – combine it with an OP mod like Trailblazer. https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=47980

Off the top of my head, you want to keep an eye on TerminusEst, Combine Keegan and Pillowblaster. They’re putting out some good stuff.

The levels you pick will really affect your enjoyment. Try looking through the Cacowad’s (https://www.doomworld.com/cacowards/) and downloading anything that appeals. ALL the stuff listed for the Cacowad’s is quality – but it’s only some of the good stuff out there.

Finally, Doom Mod Madness on YouTube always manages to find weird and interesting new mods. I don’t watch as regularly as I used to, but it’s been a useful series for me.

The mods above require GZDoom to play. I also highly recommend using the ZDL launcher because eventually you’ll have way too many files in your core Doom folder to do the drag and drop thing. Let me know if you need any help with that.